Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
Sage
Idrift in and out, hearing deep voices around me.
Three of them. One I recognize in my soul, Barrett, and another sounds familiar.
That must be Rafe. I remember Barrett calling someone and then also seeing Rafe at Barrett’s when we arrived, standing next to another man.
Just as tall, but not quite as built. That isn’t to say the strength wasn’t visible, but he was leaner.
His voice must be the third. The one who called me darling before injecting me with drugs that put me to sleep almost instantly.
My emotions are uncontrollable, but I’m unsure how much I let out. A whimper or two as I see the doctor sewing my arm and the ugly gash that’s even deeper than I thought. No wonder I bled so much.
Blood. There was so much of it. My own. His.
My stomach revolts and everyone in the room tenses. The slits in my eyes land on Barrett and everything in me stills. He looks worse than I feel, and not due to being hurt. His hair is in disarray and his eyes are wild, torn between emotions. My good arm is wrapped up in his solid hands.
Hands that I watched disembowel someone for threatening my life.
I lurch again, my stomach clenching, but then I feel another prick in my upper arm, forcing me back to a dreamless sleep.
The next time I regain a semblance of consciousness, the only one beside me is Barrett, but the doctor is standing at the end of the bed, glaring at Barrett with a look that should terrify anyone. Well, anyone but an assassin.
“Watch her emotional state when she wakes. Take things slow and don’t submerge that arm in water anytime soon.”
I scoff. “I don’t have an emotional state.” But I don’t know how I sound or if my lips even moved at all.
“Shh, pet. I’m here.” Barrett presses his lips to my temple.
“Daddy,” I sigh.
“Yes. Daddy.”
And I drift off again after hearing a grunt from the other side of the room.
I’m unsure how much time has passed when I wake again, but this time the room is dim. A low lamp shines from a nightstand. A sort of clarity runs through me. The room isn’t blurred and I’m aware of the warm presence beside me, his eyes watching me as I slowly look for the others I heard earlier.
“How do you feel?” Barrett’s hand gently slides over my stomach.
“I don’t know.” Turning my head, I’m stunned at the look on his face. Tortured. It’s the only word I can think to describe the twisted agony darkening his eyes or the deep pinch to his lips.
“Are you in pain?”
I consider it, lifting my arm off the mattress beside me. “Not really. It aches.” I don’t want to look at it and risk the memory of the deep gash and the knife that caused it. The same knife that Barrett used to kill him.
Assassinations don’t carry passion or emotion.
Right? They shouldn’t. Not for someone like Barrett who has made a career out of it.
Not for someone whose control is absolute in all other circumstances.
But I can’t erase the memory of his eyes or every thrust of the knife in the assailant’s body.
I can’t erase what it was like to see someone disemboweled on the deep-blue shag carpet I picked out for myself when I bought the place.
Despite how dark the colour was, every drop of blood and whatever else came out of his body was clearly visible in the fabric.
Barrett gets up and walks around to the other side of the bed.
He slides an arm beneath me and helps me to sit up as if he believes my entire body is weak.
Maybe it is, but not to the extent he seems to think as he continues to cradle my back while reaching for a bottle of water sitting on the nightstand.
“Here. Drink.” He holds it to my lips and tilts it back slowly. “Good. Now, take this.” A small pill rests between his fingers.
“What is it?”
“Pain relief. Hayden left it. It’s been long enough since your last dose.”
“No. I’m not in pain right now.”
“Sage.” His voice drops with warning, not giving me a choice but to open my mouth and allow him to slip the pill inside and bring the water back to my lips. He tries to ease me back down to the bed.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
Barrett nods and uses the same care to help me stand. I’ll admit, my legs are shaky. I don’t understand it. It was a cut in my arm. “How much blood did I lose?” I meant the question for myself, not to be uttered aloud for him to hear.
His gaze drops to the bandage around my arm. “Too much.”
I tilt my head to force his attention away from the damage. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. This is my fault. And it won’t happen again.”
“How is this your fault?” It feels like déjà vu and I’m sure we had this conversation already, but most of what happened after Barrett killed the guy is fuzzy.
But he doesn’t answer me. He sets a hand to my lower back and holds my good arm to help me to the bathroom. The more I move, the more strength I feel returning to my legs. I’m not so weak after all. Yet, Barrett still hovers inside the bathroom.
“Leave.”
“No.”
“I can’t go with you in here. I’m okay. I’ll yell if I need help.”
Barrett sighs, but he backs away, leaving the door open a crack. It’s the best I’m going to get.
I try to be quick for fear Barrett will barge in after he’s counted to ten or twenty, whatever arbitrary amount of time he’s installed in his head. When I open the door, he’s standing directly on the other side. Heat flares in my cheeks, but his focus instantly drops to my arm.
“Are you worried it’s going to fall off?”
“This isn’t a joke, Sage. Back to bed. You need more rest.” He’s right, but I hate the look in his eyes. The amount of guilt and maybe his own version of shock gripping tight. But why? Why does he feel this way?
“You saved me.”
“I also allowed you to walk in there without checking the place.”
“Is that what’s wrong? You feel guilty for not checking the house first?”
He only stares back at me.
“We didn’t know he’d hire someone to wait in my bedroom closet.”
Still, he stares, his eyes only going darker.
“I’m safe now.”
“I could have lost you.” It’s those words that reveal the torture I see in him. It’s not only guilt, but it’s fear too. This thing between us has grown further than what either of us could have comprehended.
I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.
“Bed. Now.”
He tucks me in on my side, propping my arm on a pillow beside me, before going around to his side and leaving a foot of space between us.
It takes me a little while to fall asleep with him only staring at me and not touching me, but soon the exhaustion wins.
I’ve never been in shock before—not like that.
But looking back, I know that’s what happened to me.
The sight of my arm gaping open, watching Barrett kill with that much intensity and emotion, it was more than enough to break my brain for a little while.
Daylight slips through the last vestiges of sleep and I hear the shower running in the bathroom. The way he was watching me last night, I’m shocked he’s left my side. I need to know what he’s feeling. I can’t get the image of his tortured eyes out of my mind.
I still don’t want to remember what I witnessed in my bedroom yesterday, but I want him. Strength has returned to my limbs. I’m able to walk on steady feet toward the bathroom door that’s left open a crack.
I’m wearing one of his T-shirts—something else I don’t remember from the night before. He likely did it once I was asleep after the doctor left.
Pushing on the door, I step into the steam and close the door behind me to keep the warmth inside. Barrett slides open the glass shower door when he hears the click.
“What are you doing out of bed?” The torture hasn’t left him. If anything, it’s made deeper roots. It isn’t only his eyes that are dark, his entire aura bleeds.
“I wanted you.” I have no other reason.
“Go back to bed.” His jaw clenches as he dismisses me.
“No.” There is something about him that terrifies me, but I know he won’t hurt me. I trust him. However, it’s up to me to pull him out of this and find out what lies beneath.
“Now, Sage.” He drops his chin.
And I lift mine. “I said, no.”
Leaving the shower door wide open, he steps out.
His entire body seems to grow with muscles tightening and broad shoulders lifting.
“Get back in bed before I strap you down and fuck you into it.” He stalks out of the shower with level steps, glistening drops of water falling from his body and hitting the tiled floor.
He’s a whole other beast in this moment. Whatever has been festering inside him since yesterday now controls him.
“No.” This time, my refusal is weak and I wonder as my back hits the closed door if I’ve gone too far. The dark orbs of his eyes are feral.
“So be it.” His words are harsh, but they don’t match his touch. He pulls me against him, soaking the shirt. His firm hold isn’t bruising as I expected, but I have no escape. Lifting me off the floor with only an arm around my waist, Barrett opens the door.
Laying me out on the bed, he carefully sets my arm on a pillow, his eyes lingering on the bandage.
“You aren’t going anywhere.” Reaching into the drawer of the nightstand, he pulls out cuffs I haven’t seen before.
It’s as if he planned to lock me up soon.
He straps one around my good wrist and locks it in place.
Then he slides down the bed and does the same to each ankle, all before connecting each to the bed frame.
I don’t fight him, knowing he needs this. His skin is still wet and the shower still runs in the bathroom, but his focus is only on me. He lifts the shirt so it sits above my breasts. I’m completely bare beneath it. He must not have seen a need to put underwear on me when he dressed me in my sleep.
I test the cuffs, then wiggle the hand of my injured arm. “I could free myself.” I keep my voice soft and flirty, trying to ease the tension in him.
“Don’t test me, Sage.” Only Sage. He hasn’t called me pet since I woke after the doctor sewed my arm.
So test him is exactly what I do.